US Under Attack - Search On For Terrorists

USA investigators have made headway
into who they believe is responsible for yesterday's
terrorist attacks on the United States, on New York's World
Trade Centre and the US Military's Pentagon. The
individuals, the groups, organisations and nations deemed
responsible will certainly face a full retaliatory strike
back from the united States Military and possibly other NATO
countries.

Latest reports from the United States
Government and investigative sources suggests they are "90%"
certain that this act of war was organised by Osama bin
Laden - who currently has refuge in the northern hills of
Afghanistan.

US
officials say they have evidence that each of the four
terrorist teams had among them a certified pilot, some of
whom had flown for Saudi Airlines.

The officials are not clear on
whether the pilots are US trained or Saudi Arabia trained or
both.

The
terrorist commando teams likely had four to five persons.
Somemay have crossed the Canadian border into the U.S.

Reports suggest
that within the past few months, the FBI were watching two
men attached to the Islamic Jihad terror group, but a
botch-uo saw the men get into the US. One media outlet -
Time Magazine - reports the two men were on the American
Airlines Flight 77, the plane that crashed into the
Pentagon.

Boston,
it is believed, has been a central hub for the terrorist
group's operation; and US investigators have already seized
alleged associates of a bin Laden cell in Florida. The
officials say this group was providing support on the
aviation aspects of the attack.

US Spooks may have been tipped off to the
attack in June. Investigators are looking over old reports
and believe they have information that could draw light on
those responsible for the attack, although at the time the
intelligence was too vague.At that time, the alert went out
to US embassies, especially those in the Middle East and the
military moved to a higher level of alert.

Osama bin Laden is an Islamic
fundamentalist and the son of a Saudi
billionaire.He
has been on the USA's FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitive list
since 1999, and the U.S. State Department has offered a $5
million reward for his arrest.

U.S. prosecutors say bin Laden is the
leader of al Qaeda(Arabic for "the Base"),
a worldwide network of terrorists and is blamed for striking
US targets around the world. Such targets include: the
millennium bombing plot, last year's attack on the USS Cole
in Yemen and the nearly simultaneous bombings of the U.S.
embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

Bin Laden was also thought to be behind a
suspected plot organising a large bomb attack on the Sydney
Olympic Games in 2000. Australian, US and New Zealand secret
service investigators suspected an Afghani-cell was
operating from Auckland City New Zealand. See:
the New Zealand Herald's coverage Terrorist Cell in
Auckland...

In February this year, secret
intelligence agents described how terrorist groups,
including bin Laden, were using coded messages in
pornography and sports websites to help agents plot
guerrilla attacks.

The
Spooks said how encrypted messages on internet bulletin
boards have replaced the traditional cloak-and-dagger
methods of dead-letter drops.

IT security experts explained that
governments around the world were struggling to control the
internet, particularly the right to monitor e-mail, in an
effort to thwart dissident attacks.

Even in New Zealand the Government has a
Bill before the House that intends widespread changes to how
SIS and other investigators gather information from
individual's email and internet communications. Controversy
surrounds the Bill due to it's invasive abilities into
people's private affairs.

Although IT security experts say even if
governments were able to get access to the keys to
encryption, a message could still get through by being
double-encrypted.

CIA information operations manager John
Serabian told a US Government panel in 2000, that groups
such as Hizbollah, Hamas, and bin Laden's were using
computerised files, email and encryption to communicate.

"Terrorists already use the
internet to communicate, to raise funds, recruit, and gather
intelligence," Serabian told the US government
panel.

Melbourne's Herald Sun
newspaper reported, in April 1999, that Australia's spy
agency - the Australian Security and Intelligence
Organisation - was investigating claims that bin Laden was
trying to recruit members in Melbourne. ASIO and
counter-terrorist police were on alert following sensational
allegations which emerged in a court case in which an Iraqi
national was accused of attacking a family for refusing to
join bin Laden's extremist Muslim group.

Bin Laden's anger with the United States
stems from the 1990 decision by Saudi Arabia to allow the
U.S. to stage attacks on Iraqi forces in Kuwait and Iraq.
After the U.S. victory, the U.S. military presence became
permanent.

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